Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/161

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9*s. xii. AUG. 22, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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though some of the incidents related of her are due to the imagination of the writer, it seems to me tolerably certain that she ac- quired a considerable amount of money by acting as a sort of licensed broker between thieves and their victims.

G. THORN DRURY.

There is a certain family likeness in all these minor poems, acknowledged and un- acknowledged ; for instance, compare

But when the World shall be calcined, as quoted by MR. W. MOY THOMAS, with

This plant, though calcined into dust. See 9 th S. vi. 183. A. H.

WORDSWORTH QUERIES (9 th S. xii. 88).

The blessings he enjoys to guard is from a poem by Tobias Smollett, beginning Pure stream in whose transparent wave My youthful limbs I wont to lave.

In the third verse occur the lines :

And hearts resolved and hands prepared The blessings they enjoy to guard.

ALEXANDER PATRICK.

"PADDY PERSONS" (9 th S. xii. 87). Both the dictionary of Kentish dialect and that of the Sussex dialect have " bud," mean- ing a young calf of the first year. That of the Sussex dialect also gives " buddy," stupid, in the same sense as the word " calf " is often used for a stupid fellow. T. Digges was presumably of the Kent family of that name. May not he have meant " buddy per- sons," young fellows, neither boys nor full- grown men, but not necessarily stupid 1

ARTHUR HUSSEY.

Tankerton-on-Sea.

EARLIEST ENGLISH NEWSPAPER (9 th S. xii. 29, 70). Through an oversight I failed to notice MR. ARTHUR'S query at the earlier reference, or should have at once endeavoured to answer it. I fear I can add little to MR. HODGKIN'S reply, except to give the title in full of this curious little tract, which now lies before me. The British Museum does not possess any one of the three tracts dated respectively 2, 13, 23 August ; in fact, the first, in the Burney collection, with Butter's name, is dated 25 September, 1622. It would be far- too rash a statement to say that mine, dated 2 August, is unique ; it must, however, be extremely rare, as I can find no other copy catalogued in any of the great libraries :

" The certaine Newes | of this present Weeke. | Brought by sundry | Posts from severall places, but chiefly | the progresse and arriyall of Count Mans- field | with the Duke of Brunswicke into Champeney in j France ; and the joyning of sundry of the | Princes with them, &c. | With the preparation of


the French | King to resist him : and what great feare Count | Mansfields unexpected arrivall hath | put all France in, &c. I Out of the best Informa- tions of Letters and | other, this Second of August. 1622. | London, | Printed by I. H. for Nathaniel Butter, and are to | be sold at his shop at the signe of the Pide Bull | at S. Austins Gate. 1622."

On the title-page is the device of a flaming, heart within a wreath, and on the verso a full-page woodcut of the arms of Bohemia ; one blank leaf, title, and sixteen numbered pages, with signatures and catchwords, small 4to. The first eight pages contain news from various parts of Europe ; the remaining pages are devoted to the movements of Count Mansfield.

It is worth mentioning that Butter did not begin to number his papers until 15 October, 1622, the issue for that date being marked No. 1, after which the numbering was more or less consecutive for some years. The Burney collection contains an almost com- plete sequence of Butter's Neives ; a few are missing. Besides those named above, I note^the absence of Nos. 3 and 21 ; both these are in my collection, and are dated respec- tively 22 October, 1622, and 7 March, 1623.

The English Mercuric, dated 1588, is, doubtless, the publication to which MR. WAINEWRIGHT refers. An interesting account of this literary forgery, of which the British Museum authorities were victims, appears in Hunt's l Fourth Estate ' (edition 1850, vol. i. p. 33).

Might I take this opportunity of asking your correspondents if they can inform me where I may find collections of the small 4to. Civil War Mercuries, Intelligencers, &c., 1641-50 1 I am aware of those in the British Museum, Bodleian, Guildhall, London In- stitute, and Advocates' Libraries.

CHARLES L. LINDSAY.

97, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.

The Elizabethan newspaper containing news of the Spanish Armada being in the English Channel, inquired for ante, p. 71, was the English Mercurie, pretended to have been printed by authority in 1588. It was included in Dr. T. Birch's bequest of his books and papers to the British Museum in 1766, and was discovered by Mr. Thos. Watts, of the Museum, to be a forgery, 4 November, 1839. For an account of early newspapers, and in particular of this forgery, see the Penny Magazine, ix. 17, 18 January, 1840; also D'Israeli's 'Curiosities of Litera- ture,' new edition by the Earl of Beacons- field (1881), i. 155. ADRIAN WHEELER.

" LAMBETH " (9 th S. xii. 48). From its con- text I feel sure that this word, as cited by